Monday, August 29, 2011

On Wayne Moss And Charlie Scarbrough

Dear reader and visitor, I spoke to Charlie Scarbrough ("Charlie King", KAAY 1967-1969) about Jerry Sims' passing. He went to the wake and said that there was a great reception for Jerry. He recognized a few people, Gary Weir and Dale Seindenschwarz and a couple more. Due to a hectic work schedule and some personal matters, he was unable to stay very long. We spoke of some other, unimportant personal matters, about the station and personnel and I had a wonderful visit with Charlie.

I spoke with Wayne Moss later, who was the original "Sonny Martin" before Jerry, then returned to KAAY and used his real name when Matt White had the moniker locked up. He'd not met Jerry personally, but knew of him. I had another wonderful visit, with Wayne regaling stories, one very humerous I have permission from Dave Montgomery to relate. Sadly, after an hour, my wife reminded me that it WAS long distance and she wanted to use the phone!

So, here's the promised story: while at the 7th Street location, KAAY had a hot air balloon that the mayor at that time was going to go up in, with a deejay. Surprisingly, even though they were "game" for any and all events, Wayne could NOT get a deejay to go up in the balloon! Well, Studio Engineer Dave Montgomery, fresh back from Viet Nam, was back on the job and Wayne asked him. Dave said sure and climbed aboard. Wayne said he did a great job of deejaying- even to the point where the balloon started losing heated air and was descending....

...down, down, down to the ground Dave and the Mayor rode...Dave was on the mic all the way to impact- right into a chicken coop!

Later, Wayne said that when Dave and the mayor arrived back at the station, they had feathers and chicken poop all over them! The mayor got the worst of it, having some smeared all over his face! Wayne said that Dave made mention of, while riding helocopters in Viet Nam, he never got shot down, but he had to come back to the States to get involved in a crash landing!!!

By the way, both Charlie and Wayne are well and trying to stay cool in this heat. If you have any kind words to pass along, let me know and I'll let them know!